The Prime Of Life

Oh, the strength of the toil of those twenty years, with father, and master, and men!
And the clearer brain of the business man, who has held his own for ten:
Oh, the glorious freedom from business fears, and the rest from domestic strife!
The past is dead, and the future assured, and Im in the prime of life!

She bore me old, and they kept me old, and they worked me early and late;
I carried the loads of my selfish tribe, from seven to thirty eight:
I slaved with dad, in the dust and heat, that my brothers might enjoy,
But I rest to-day in the prime of life, and Ill live and die a boy!

When the last crop failed, and the stock were gone, did the old mans head go down?
No! he started business, on what was left, in the produce line in town.
They sent my brothers to boarding schools, when our way to the front wed won,
Theyd borrow, and borrow, but never had aught but contempt for the eldest son.

My brothers they went to the world away, and they left the home in strife.
They sowed wild oats in the pride of youth, and they pawned the prime of life.
They sowed too fast, and they sowed too far; and they came back one by one,
You couldnt tell which is the eldest son and which is the youngest son.

Oh, I longed for a love that I could not claim, and a breath of the youth denied,
But I stuck to the store when the old man went, and the mater until she died:
With Jobs own sister and Satans aunt, good Lord! and the fiends own wife,
But Im free of them now, it is no matter how, and Im in the prime of life.

My brothers have turned respectable, and are steady as men can be:
The youngest and worst is a leading light, and he aims at reforming me!
But I lend and help, and Ill fix them up, for I cant but see with a sigh,
That the youngest, who left us a handsome boy, is an older man than I.

But its Lord make us thankful three times a day, before they eat their fill,
They can thank the Lord if they like, I say, but I reckon I pay the bill.
They feel independent, Im glad to know, for if all I hear is true,
My brothers agree that I do no more than I have a right to do.

Theyll work in the store while I see the world, and Ill let them share the till,
But I sail to-day, for a year away, to go wherever I will:
I sail with the woman who waited for me, old sweetheart; and brand new wife,
She is handsome and true, and shes thirty-two, and Im in the prime of life.

For Capetown, and London, and Norraway, for Germany, Holland, and France,
For Switzerland, Italy, anywhere, for Greece, and for Egypt a glance,
For India, China, and strange Japan, for the East with mystery rife,
I have made enough, and I have my love, and Im in the prime of life!

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

Henry Lawson

Song Of The Old Bullock-Driver

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Song Of A Prison

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Shearers Dream

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

The Old Bark School

Henry Lawson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

I only woke this morning
To find the world is fair,
Im going on for forty,
With scarcely one grey hair;

Im going on for forty,
Where mans strong life begins,
With scarce a sign of crows feet,
In spite of all my sins.

Then heres the living Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then heres the living Forties!
Were good for ten years more.

The teens were black and bitter,
A smothered boyhoods grave,
A farm-drudge in the drought-time,
A weary workshop slave.

But twenty years have laid them,
And all the world is fair,
Well find time in the Forties,
To have some boyhood there.

Then heres the wide, free Forties,
The Forties! The Forties!
Then heres the wide, free Forties!
Were good for ten years...

Henry Lawson

The Last Review

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review,
For the Bush is slipping from me, and the town is going too:
Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet,
And Im weary, very weary, of the Faces in the Street.

In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest,
I have lost the scent and colour and the music of the West:
And I would recall old faces with the memories they bring,
Where are Bill and Jim and Mary and the Songs They used to Sing?

They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of Wattle bloom!
And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.

...

Henry Lawson

The Battling Days

So, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content,
And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the days mis-spent;
Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change since then,
In spite of all, Id as lief be back in those hard old days again.

They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel at times, but then,
In spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again.
The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own,
(Twas little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever be sown)

But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts of men,
I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again.
We travel first, or we go salo...

Henry Lawson

To Jack

So, Ive battled it through on my own, Jack,
I have done with all dreaming and doubt.
Though stoney to-night and alone, Jack,
I am watching the Old Year out.
I have finished with brooding and fears,
Jack, And the spirit is rising in me,
For the sake of the old New Years, Jack,
And the bright New Years to be.

I have fallen in worldly disgrace, Jack,
And I know very well that you heard;
They have blackened my name in this place, Jack,
And I answered them never a word.
But why should I bluster or grieve,
Jack? So narrow and paltry they be,
I knew you would never believe, Jack,
The lies that were said against me.

That is done which shall never be undone,
And I blame not, I blame not my land,
But Im hearing the Calling of London,
And I...

Henry Lawson

The Vagabond

White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea,
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood,
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood.

Flax and tussock and fern,
Gum and mulga and sand,
Reef and palm, but my fancies turn
Ever away from land;
Strange wild cities in ancient state,
Range and river and tree,
Snow and ice. But my star of fate
Is ever across the sea.

A god-like ride on a thundering sea,
When all but the stars are blind,
A desperate race from Eternity
With a gale-and-a-half behind.
A jovial spree in the cabin at night,
A song on the rolling deck,
A lark ashore wit...

Henry Lawson

The Writer's Dream

A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold, yet the world was dear to him;,
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.

And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change a...

Henry Lawson